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Disagreement derails Flats case

New rules block compensation to worker's widow

By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 17, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Loa Richards, left, and her daughter, Donna DeKruger, look over some of the paperwork on Loa Richards' husband, Warren Richards, a Rocky Flats worker who died at age 51 of stomach cancer.

Photo by Christopher Tomlinson / Special To The Rocky

Loa Richards, left, and her daughter, Donna DeKruger, look over some of the paperwork on Loa Richards' husband, Warren Richards, a Rocky Flats worker who died at age 51 of stomach cancer.

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Just before Christmas, Loa Richards opened a letter from the government and thought her problems were solved.

She could fix her roof on her mobile home and stop covering her floor with buckets when rain fell or snow melted. She could replace the water heater the inspector warned could pump out carbon monoxide. She could have a portrait made of herself to give her children as a memento.

And she could pick out her own casket for the day she would join her husband, Warren, who died of cancer 17 years ago at age 52.

The government's letter said Warren's cancer was likely the result of his work at Rocky Flats, the defunct nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver. Congress decided in 2000 that the nation's nuclear weapons workers and their survivors were due compensation for sacrificing their health building atomic bombs.

The government recommended that Richards, 70, who lives in Clifton, near Grand Junction, receive $300,000.

"She thought it was a blessing from God," said Richards' daughter, Donna DeKruger, who helped her mother file for the compensation more than six years ago.

Then, this month, another letter arrived. Under new guidelines written by the U.S. Labor Department and published in February, Richards apparently won't be receiving the money after all.

"You go through this for years - the ups and downs. I just kind of want to give up," said Richards, who is surviving on Social Security and her husband's Rocky Flats pension of $138 a month. "I don't want to sound like a crybaby. I'm thankful for what I have. It's just so sad."

Complicated cases

Richards' case illustrates the complications and controversies that have shadowed the government's compensation program since the beginning.

The latest disagreement emerged in February, when the Labor Department, which oversees the program, published new rules meant to determine which ill workers or survivors could avoid much red tape and qualify for streamlined aid. Among other things, the rules say a person must have been exposed to a "sufficient" level of neutron radiation to get on the fast track for money and medical help.

Today, members of a panel appointed by President Bush to oversee the compensation program plan to review Labor's rules. Mark Griffon, the panel's lead member on Rocky Flats issues, says the rules are not what the Presidential Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health intended.

Shelby Hallmark, who directs the compensation program for the Labor Department, disagrees. He says the rules are consistent with what the board has said. He also said the Labor Department's rules did not amount to a new burden of proof for workers.

"This is not a new 'significant' level test that somehow makes the process more difficult," Hallmark said.

But Loa Richards doesn't see it that way. "I don't think they comprehend at all what this does to us," she said.

To qualify for compensation, most sick workers must prove a link between toxic exposures and their illnesses, which takes an average of three years.

But if records that could prove this link are missing or faulty, workers with radiation-related cancers can ask for "special exposure cohort" status, making them eligible for streamlined aid.

The status of Rocky Flats workers was supposed to have been settled in August. That's when the presidential advisory board determined that reliable records didn't exist to show how much neutron radiation workers had absorbed in the early years of the weapons plant.

As a result of that finding, certain ill Flats workers got a big break. Special status was extended to those who were employed between 1952 and 1966 and "were or should have been monitored for neutron radiation." So far, 200 workers have met that definition.

In December, Labor officials said Richards qualified for $300,000 because of Warren's "documented exposure to neutrons."

But two months later, officials decided that Warren Richards' exposures did not qualify his widow for compensation. The second letter Loa Richards received said government records showed her husband "was not monitored for neutron dose." As a result, she didn't qualify for compensation.

There is no explanation why the first letter mentions neutron exposures and the second denies it or what difference the new Labor Department rules made.

Building not on list

The debate between the Labor Department and the presidential panel is basically over who's eligible for streamlined assistance. Warren Richards' case illustrates the problem.

He was a tool engineer officially assigned to Building 444 at Rocky Flats. That's not one of 10 buildings the Labor Department lists as a potential neutron radiation site. Ill workers from those buildings are automatically eligible for streamlined aid no matter what their radiation exposure records show.

The Rocky Mountain News reported in November, however, that there were 19 other buildings - including Building 444 where Richards was assigned - where workers had documented neutron exposures.

In addition, Richards' family discovered that his job took him to top-secret plutonium buildings, including some of the 10 cited by the Labor Department.

Board member Griffon said these kinds of cases, in which workers went from building to building in the course of their job, are at the root of the current debate.

Whether they or their survivors deserve compensation, even in the absence of exposure records, is the issue now before the board.

But the panel has only an advisory role. The real power lies with the secretary of Health and Human Services, who defines who gets special status at various weapons sites, and the Labor Department, which uses those definitions to write guidelines for determining who qualifies.

"I'm not sure what will happen," Griffon said. "We've never had a situation like this before."

What's next for Loa Richards is not clear either. Her case will be reviewed again to see if her husband worked at least 250 days - the government's minimum standard to be considered for aid - in one of the neutron buildings on the government's list. She knows his work took him into some of those buildings, but can't prove how many days he spent there.

"It's just been hard," she said. "I've reached the point where I just can't deal with things very well."

Streamlined-aid timeline

* February 2005: Rocky Flats workers ask the government to grant them "special exposure cohort" status, saying they deserved that streamlined path to compensation because of faulty or missing work records.

* June 2007: After more than two years of debate, the White House Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health agrees that some Flats workers should qualify - those who worked at least 250 days from 1952-1966 and "were or should have been monitored for neutron radiation."

* November 2007: The U.S. Labor Department says workers from the top-secret Building 881 were mistakenly left off the list of those who would qualify for streamlined aid. The Rocky Mountain News reported that workers from another 19 buildings had similar exposure records but also were left off the list.

* January 2008: Labor officials write new rules for determining which Flats workers qualify for the special status.

frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091

Comments

  • March 17, 2008

    6:24 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    vudumom writes:

    If Colorado people want to help these people who have been treated so unfairly bu our government,here is what you can do.
    Stop pouring money into political campaigns. Someone should start a fund for these people and there loved ones and all political contributions go to this or the politicians from the state level to the federal level get no money in their coffers from anyone in Colorado until someone steps up to help these people and their families.
    This is horroble what the government is doing to these people and their loved ones.Yet I haven't heard of any politician stepping up to right this wrong.This is wrong on so many levels it is sickening.
    Obama wants change and breezes through our state and all the people line up to see him and open their wallets but I haven't heard him mention the Rocky Flats workers and their families.
    Hillary says she is going to be a strong leader and fight for the American people but she has come through here looking for money and has said nothing about the Rocky Flats workers and their loved ones.McCain I din't remember coming to Colorado but he will and he says he can get things done in Washington because he knows the ins and outs.He has said nothing about the Rocky Flats workers.

    What the government has done to these workers past and present is disgusting.I think next time some politician has his hand out for a donation you should write a check and tell that politician wheter they be state,federal or presidential that you are going to give your campaign contribution to someone who needs it,The Rocky Flats workers who have been given a death sentence and the runaround by our government,who is hoping they will die and problem solved.
    People want to help their country should start by helping their fellow citizens and stop buying into a politicians American dream,but your own.Help someone else who really needs it.